User blog:Newuser2572/Monster Girl Quest – Story Highlights
. Preface: About myself: I’m currently studying video game development on my own and I’m always looking to improve my skill set by playing and analyzing existing works to find out how they work, extract their principles and implement them in my own future developments. I had heard on the internet about this game and many people were praising its interesting story line, which is why in 2020 I looked up this game, came for the story and stayed for the story. Overall I have to say that the game’s story line has impressed me, not compared to “a decent story considering that it’s a sex game”, but compared to some video game story lines I found in western AAA titles. Monster Girl Quest’s story tackles many deep and meaningful real world issues that are embedded in the backstory of its characters. Its overall well timed story elements and mechanics have also proven to be a great compliment to it. For this reason I decided to create a short analysis of some of my highlights in the story, explain their background and why I thought that these parts were particularly well executed. I originally intended this work to be for my own use only, but later decided to publish parts of it for other people to potentially make use of it as well. Please forgive me if some of the story elements that I recalled below are slightly inaccurate as I was doing this as a project in my spare time while working full-time. This may have caused my memories to be less precise than I would like them to be. Let’s get started: Chapter 1: The first battle: At the beginning of the game, the Goddess Ilias instructs the protagonist Luka in a dream to embark on a quest to defeat the “Evil Monster Lord”. After Luka awakens, he sees fleeing villagers that are warning everyone that a monster has been found in the nearby forest and is attacking the village. Luka, having only trained with the sword and never actually fought a real enemy, pulls all of his courage together and runs toward the forest. Once he arrives, he is greeted by a slime monster that refuses to leave even after Luka's attempt at diplomacy. He moves on to fight the beast, and hits it once with his sword. However, the monster quickly recovers all of the health it lost in the attack. He goes for another attack, but once again the slime monster regenerates all of it's health almost immediately. Luka is distraught and questions the situation “My first enemy is invincible? How unfair!”as the enemy is teasing him for his lack of fighting skills. In his next turn he attempts to hit the monster numerous times in short succession, and this time the attack succeeds as the monster is unable to recover all of it's health quickly enough. After a few minutes, the monster is finally defeated and Luka emerges victorious. Comments: With this twist at the very beginning of the story, the game makes it clear to the player that the protagonist is still very inexperienced in combat as he struggles to defeat even a low level opponent. This continues to some extent throughout the first 2 chapters of the game, although with diminishing extent. The way the story was written clearly communicates to the player that the protagonist is very vulnerable even to a skilled player who manages to kill every enemy that he encounters on the first try. It is a refreshing spin on the usual way that RPGs handle this (by throwing weak opponents at the player at first, which the player can defeat quite easily, therefore creating less of a sense of vulnerability). Context: After defeating the slime monster, Luka meets a monster called Alice that had crashed into a nearby forest area. He helps her out and rushes to his baptism which was to be performed by the Goddess Ilias herself later on. However the baptism is refused to him for unknown reasons. In despair he returns home, only to find Alice waiting ''for him.'' He first complains about her trespassing but eventually the topic shifts to Luka's goal, considering his circumstances. Luka explains that even though he wasn't baptized, he still wishes to travel to defeat the Monster Lord. He actually believes that Humans and Monsters should coexist, and believes the Monster Lord to be an obstacle to this. Alice insists on accompanying Luka, and as he realizes that Alice is too powerful for him to refuse her requests, he agrees. So they travel onward to Iliasburg, where they rest after resolving a major incident in the town square. The mysterious village: After resting at an Inn, they move on to a nearby village that they had heard about during their stay in Iliasburg. The village called “Enrika” looks like a normal village from the outside, but as Luka approaches the outskirts of town, he is stopped by a woman called “Micaela” who informs him that anybody who isn't a merchant isn't allowed to enter. Luka politely acknowledges the wishes of the townspeople communicated to him by Micaela and returns to Iliasburg. Comments: This is an interesting cliffhanger that is addressed at the beginning of the 3rd chapter (about 20 – 30 hours of game time later) Having the scene for such an important plot twist later on in the game teased at the very beginning makes the story feel much more alive and connected. In other games what can happen is that story elements are just added after the fact without any real connection to previous environments that the protagonist has interacted with, making them feel more like the plot devices that they are rather than them feeling like a real place with a previously unknown backstory. The missing men: After embarking on a couple of side quests, Luka makes his way to the so called “Happiness Village”, the name of which is actually derived from “Harpies”, which are a type of monster that lives around the area. The protagonist had heard of some turmoil around the area that had hindered the town from exporting their famous honey. As Luka arrives he is greeted by seemingly normal townspeople, with the exception that all of them are women. Not a single man can be seen in the village with the exception of a single young boy. Upon questioning the locals, Luka is told that the men had been kidnapped by the nearby harpies and he agrees to help the women to free them. Suddenly, a scream can be heard from the boy Luka saw earlier. He rushes to the boy's defence and defeats the harpy that was trying to kidnap the boy. Luka soon devises a plan with the women in town to attack the harpy village. He will be entering the harpy village undetected and take out the harpy queen. After their leader is taken out, the harpies will be disorganized, allowing the women to take up arms and swiftly free the men. Said and done, Luka moves in to the village and after some minor setbacks manages to defeat the harpy queen (as she surrendered to Luka) and send a signal to the women who start swarming the village. As the women are about to attack the harpies, the men are suddenly coming out of the harpies’ houses, seemingly uninjured. The men beg the women not to attack the harpies. Both the women and Luka are visibly confused by the situation as the harpy queen goes on to explain it. The harpy queen informs the women that harpies require human men to reproduce, otherwise they would go extinct, which is why they had originally kidnapped the men. The men ended up staying voluntarily after being kidnapped and made no attempts to escape due to them indulging in the sexual pleasure provided by the harpies (meaning that they're total manwhores). Both the human and the harpy village eventually come to an agreement wherein the men will be sent to the harpy village to marry the harpies and in return the harpies will help with the farm work in the human village. With this situation resolved, Luka heads on to his next destination. Comments: This event has an interesting plot twist, which although minor has managed to keep this quest interesting and gives the player a sense of discovery after finding out the truth behind the village. It also (intentionally or unintentionally) showcases the harmful effects that lust can have on individuals, with the men being perfectly willing to abandon their duties as husbands to take care of their wives in order to indulge in some hedonistic fantasy of their own. Context: Luka finishes his dealings on the first continent and travels through the first section of the second (main) continent in spite of major interference from two of the four heavenly knights as well as numerous monsters along the way. Due to a blunder on the part of one of the four heavenly knights, Tamamo, Luka now knows that Alice is in fact the Monster Lord he was tasked'' to fight 'by Ilias'.'' He refused to fight her however as his main goal was never the defeat of the Monster Lord but rather the coexistence between humans and monsters, which is more threatened by the four heavenly knights rather than the Monster Lord herself. Alice and Luka travel to the second section of the main continent (Safina) and arrive at the major settlement of Sabasa ''where they rest.'' Luka’s guilt: Alice confronts Luka in her usual condescending manner by telling him once again that when she first met Luka she thought he was a completely naive moron who just spouted around his dream of coexistence between monsters and humans. Alice then starts being a bit more sincere and points out that he has been behaving in a quite erratic manner, as if he was ready to throw his life away at any moment and be content with becoming a martyr. Luka then opens up about his past and tells Alice that his father, (together with his friend Lazarus that recently attacked a village that Luka visited) founded the anti-monster terrorist organization called “Ilias Kreuz” He emphasizes that he doesn't want to end up like his father after he turned bitter as a result of failing the same quest that Luka was tasked with – defeating the Monster Lord. Alice calmly points out to Luka that his fathers crimes do not transfer over to him and that he doesn't have to feel guilty for what his father did. She further goes on to say that Luka cannot rectify the past by acting this way in the present. She also adds that if Luka is serious about improving the world, he needs to be mindful of his own body and stay alive in order to make it happen himself. Luka accepts her reasoning. Comments: This interaction between Alice and Luka is quite deep and addresses an issue that is quite prevalent in many people’s real lives. There are lots of people out there trying to atone for the sins committed by people that are merely related to them, and on a societal level we can even see people attempting to atone for the sins committed by mere members of the same race or culture as them, even though these people themselves have never committed any of the immoral acts that people have in the past. It is a very interesting lesson that Alice teaches Luka in this scene. The lost' princess:' During his stay at the Sabasa castle, the local king informed Luka that his daughter had disappeared and he believes the she was kidnapped. He informs Luka that his intel points toward a pyramid in the desert and advises Luka to search for her there. Luka agrees and departs from Sabasa Castle and makes his way toward the pyramid. Right before entering the pyramid, he discovers a young woman at the entrance to the pyramid. The woman identifies herself as Sara and Luka asks what she's doing there. She replies that she wants to take part in a local ritual to get recognized by her love interest, Granberia, one of the four heavenly knights, and also asks Luka what he's doing there. Since the king had informed Luka that the information regarding the princess' disappearance was classified, Luka decided to give Sara a vague answer about trying to free somebody who is trapped inside. Luka hesitantly asks to accompany Sara inside the pyramid as he is unsure about her skill level, but still thinks her sword skills could be an asset. Shortly after entering the pyramid, they are confronted with their first opponent. While Luka attacks and hits for around 100 damage points, Sara only deals around 25 damage points, meaning that she has not even a quarter of the power of Luka. After defeating their first enemy in the pyramid they march on deeper inside and Luka can detect an enemy presence ahead of him by using the spirit of the wind that he obtained earlier. Sara is completely dumbfounded by Luka's abilities as they move deeper into the pyramid, finally meeting the final boss, the sphinx. The sphinx however does not wish to fight the two but rather gives them a riddle, which Luka manages to solve. When questioned, the sphinx goes on to tell Luka about her history, in which she highlights something that Luka hadn't thought about yet. The sphinx explains that she is hundreds of years old (a normal occurrence for monsters) and has been living in solitude for a long time after her human husband died. She mentions that she thought about becoming human in order to die with him, but was too afraid that his actions would be forgotten about, so she chose solitude over having her husband's history wiped out. Luka listens to her story and promises not to forget about it during his travels. That marks Sara and Luka's victory and them passing the ritual. Sara thanks Luka from the bottom of her heart which is unusual for Luka as he is used to regularly getting chastised by Alice almost every time he does something. Before leaving the pyramid he asks the sphinx whether she know about the whereabouts of the princess, which she denies. Sara jumps into the conversation and reveals that she is actually the princess of Sabasa Castle and informs Luka that she left one night in secret while only leaving a letter with her location behind as she thought that her father would never allow her to take part in the ritual. Luka laments that he would've probably been able to resolve the quest without even entering the pyramid if he had made a different choice when talking to Sara, which is highly unlikely however as Sara most likely wouldn't have come all this way just to give up on the ritual without even trying. The princess returns to the castle with Luka and the king thanks him. Comments: While the story surrounding Sara is a good, although fairly generic plot twist, the interesting element in this interaction between Sara and Luka is that it demonstrates how far Luka has grown when it comes to his skills. He was just as weak and inexperienced as Sara a short while ago, and now he is teaching Sara a few things about combat and demonstrates his advanced skill set as he is fighting monsters in the pyramid with her. It is a nice way of the story telling how much Luka has grown, without giving the illusion that he powerful enough to tackle to the enemies he will be fighting later on (such as the four heavenly knights). The beautiful thing about this is that Alice's criticisms of Luka are as much justified as Sara's praise. The excuses of a witch: As Luka spent time at the Sabasa Castle, he heard about a village to the south, wherein people are being persecuted as witches, regardless of whether they've done anything wrong or not. He felt obligated to do something about it and made his way to the “Witch Hunt Village”. Upon arrival, he is warned by a local not to enter the village due to the risk of being framed as a witch. But before the local is able to finish his sentence, 2 guards walk up to Luka and Alice. They claim that they wish to “test” whether Alice is a witch by cutting her hand with a knife. If she's not a witch, her hand should be bleeding from the cut. Even though the guards were using a trick knife that is incapable of cutting anything, Alice made her hand bleed using her biological abilities. The guards were completely shocked and quickly ran away as they considered Alice to be a real witch. After a brief discussion with some of the other locals, the protagonist finds out that the governor of the village is behind the witch hunt, so he makes his way to the governor's mansion to confront him. Once again 2 guards are standing between Luka and the mansion as he approaches. He uses his wind spirit to knock off the guard's helmets and they too run away in shock, assuming Luka to be another real witch. Luka enters the mansion and encounters who he had been looking for: Lily, an actual witch who had ordered the fake witch hunts. Lily explains to Luka that she was using the individuals that were brought to her for human experiments to increase her own abilities, discarding the lifeless bodies after they had seized to be useful to her. The protagonist is furious with her and challenges her to a fight, but she manages to escape through a nearby door. Luka chases after her though numerous rooms she had been using to experiment on humans, where he encounters dozens of townspeople as they were being tortured as part of Lily's experiments. He eventually catches up to Lily and challenges her to a fight, in which he quickly gains the upper hand, and as he is about to strike the last few blows, Lily tells him about her backstory: She was the daughter of a prostitute in a human village, where she was repeatedly ostracised and ridiculed. Her mother eventually died as she was working hard in an attempt to provide for her daughter. And now Lily wants to take revenge on all of these disgusting humans… Luka declares flat out that she is making excuses, trying to justify her crimes with past injustice that she has suffered, while doing not just the same thing, but far worse things to humans right now. Without hesitation Luka continues to strike her, telling her off for her attempt in evading responsibility and pushing it onto others. He defeats Lily and hands her in to the local guards for prosecution. The surviving townspeople are escorted out of the building, reuniting with their families. The taste of victory is bittersweet however, as many victims also died in Lily's experiments. Luka leaves her fate to the townspeople in the village and moves on. Comments: In this instance we have another case of a deep issue being addressed (in this case by Luka). Lily explains his backstory to him in attempt to justify her actions against humans. She may have even tried to manipulate Luka with her story in an attempt to persuade him not to strike the finishing blow. Luka however calls her out on the fact that this is an excuse she is making to get away with her immoral and criminal behaviour. In the end, Luka saw through her manipulation and brought her to justice. Again, this is something that is quite prevalent in real life, with people making excuses for their actions in this manner in an attempt to either trick their conscience, manipulate other people, or both. . . . End of Chapter 1. Category:Blog posts